then you're going to stay with me the
rest of my life."

"Am I fit to go with her?" Brick appealed to Bill Atkins.

"You ain't," Bill replied.

"I ain't fit," Brick declared firmly. "I'm a-going to fitten you; but
it's too late to work on me; and besides, if they WAS time enough, it
ain't to the grain of my nature. I knows all I wants to know, which if
little or much is enough for me. And I wouldn't be fit to go with you
out into the big world and cut a figger in it, which couldn't be no
figger but a figger naught. And Atkins who knows more than me, he says
the same."

The tears were in Lahoma's eyes. She looked from one to the other, her
little face deeply troubled. Suddenly she grabbed up her books and
started toward the stove. "Then this here civilizing is going to
stop," she declared.

"Lahoma!" Brick cried in dismay.

"Yes, it is--unless you promise to stay with me when I go to live in
the big world."

"Honey, I'll promise you this: When you are ready to live out there,
I'll sure go with you and stay with you--if you want me, when the time
comes."

Lahoma seized his hand, and jumped up and down in delight.

"It's a safe promise," remarked Bill Atkins dryly.

CHAPTER IX

A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY

One evening in May, a tall lithe figure crept the southern base of the
mountain range, following its curves with cautious feet as if fearful
of discovery. It was a young man of twenty-one or two, bronzed, free
of movement, agile of step. His face was firm, handsome and open,
although at present a wish to escape observation caused the hazel eyes
to dart here and there restlessly, while the mouth tightened in an
aspect of sternness. This air of wild resolution was heightened by the
cowboy's ordinary garments, and the cowboy's indispensable belt
well-stocked with weapons.

On reaching the spur that formed the western jaw of the horseshoe, he
crept on hands and knees, but satisfied by searching glances that the
inner expanse was deserted, he half rose and stole shadow-like along
the granite wall, until he had reached the hill-island that concealed
the cove. Again falling on hands and knees, he drew himself slowly up
among the huge flat rocks that covered the hill in all directions. In
a brief time he had traversed it, and a view of the cove was suddenly
unrolled below. A few yards from Brick Willock's dugout, now stood a
neat log cabin, and not far from the door of this cabin was a girl of
about